Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-71 today. I would like to make a few remarks about the comments of the member for Haldimand-Norfolk, who extolled the benefits of tobacco producers and the positive impact it has made on Canadian society.
I want to go on record by saying that it is an absolutely outrageous distortion of the truth to say the tobacco producers in any way are even remotely considered a benefit to Canadian society. It is an affront to every Canadian who is suffering from tobacco related diseases. Today the Canadian Cancer Society released a study which tragically demonstrates that women have unfortunately bypassed men in terms of lung cancer. It is the number one killer of women. What a tragedy. Those are the benefits the tobacco producers are giving to Canadians.
Madam Speaker, 45,000 people die every year as a result of tobacco related diseases; 250,000 children take up tobacco every single year. Half of them will die prematurely and the morbidity statistics will be greater for them than their non-smoking colleagues.
The cost to the health care system is billions of dollars. The loss in gross national product is billions of dollars. What is the benefit of this?
Today the primary cause of cancer deaths in women is lung cancer. It took women 20 year to catch up, but by heaven, "you have come a long way, baby". Indeed, they have. These are statistics of which no one can be proud and are a tragedy.
In 1994, just after the election, the situation was similar to what it is today except there was tobacco smuggling primarily centred in Quebec and on aboriginal reserves in Quebec. That is a bad thing.
However, not only was tobacco smuggled but also alcohol, people, weapons and drugs. Smuggling conduits were occurring across the board in full view of the police who were told to leave things alone because they were afraid of instigating another Oka situation, a significant consideration.
What did the government of the day do? This Liberal government dropped the tax on tobacco, decreasing the price by up to 50 per cent in some provinces. What has that done? It has increased the number of children who begin smoking every single year by about 50,000 to 100,000.
I want to read from a document published by the Ministry of Health by Drs. Morrison, Mao and Wigle called "The Impact of the Cigarette Price Rollback on the Future Health of Canadian adolescents". I will read a couple of excerpts.
"It is estimated that a 20 per cent reduction in the price of cigarettes in the next five years will result in over 142,000 new
adolescent smokers by the end of 1998. Among these persons, almost 16,900 smoking attributable deaths will occur before the age of 70, well before their normal life span should be finished".
"A 50 per cent price reduction is estimated to result in over 355,000 new adolescent smokers over the next five years which will result in approximately 40,000 smoking attributable deaths before the age of 70". That is what the government has done.
The last paragraph of this document put out by the Ministry of Health says: "Government tobacco control in Canada has had three main components: health promotion campaigns, high tobacco taxes and restrictive policies on public smoking". This is important. "Even the temporary abandonment of high cigarette taxes will likely lead to large numbers of teenagers becoming and/or remaining cigarette smokers. The health consequences of the recent tax decrease will continue for decades".
I cannot think of a single piece of legislation by any government in the history of the country that has had a more negative impact on the health and welfare of Canadians, and certainly on the health and welfare of children. I do not understand how the people on that side, who have children themselves, can in all good conscience support that bill.
Right after that, I brought in a private member's bill which demanded that the government put the tobacco taxes back where they were as of January 1994. What was the government's response? It would not make it votable so that it could become law. It would not give the House the opportunity to make the bill votable, become law and have a chance for a full debate. The government cut it off in committee. What a shame.
In the intervening three years, as a direct result of this policy, hundreds of thousands of children are now picking up cigarette smoking. It did not have to happen. There was a solution to addressing the smuggling situation without compromising the health, welfare and lives of Canadian children.
In 1992, the Conservative government of the day put an export tax on cigarettes. Within six weeks, smuggling went down by 70 per cent. The tobacco companies said to the government: "If you don't remove this export tax, we will get out of Canada". What did the Conservative government do? It buckled under the pressure, removed the export tax and the smuggling went up again. There are solutions. The reason why I focus on this is that cost is the single most important factor in consumption, particularly among children.
The government sold out in 1994 because it knew the tobacco companies would bring a strong lobby and say to the government: "You can't put an export tax on". Instead the government lowered the price and we heard champagne bottles being uncorked in all the tobacco companies. They must think we are fools to do this. They probably could not imagine that any government would compromise the health, welfare and lives of Canadians for political expediency, but that is exactly what happened.
Furthermore the government promised a $60 million investment in education after it lowered the cost because it recognized there would be an increase in consumption. However, it did not even put $6 million into education. The other $54 million somehow disappeared. The government's promise was not kept and people, particularly children, are paying the price to this day.
During the past three years, with obvious evidence of the devastating effects of the government's tobacco tax rollback, the government has done nothing. Now it is bringing in a bill which we are going to support. It is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, in fact it is quite weak. We are going to support it because it is better than nothing.
However, there are solutions to the problem. The government could have enacted solutions that would have addressed the smuggling situation without compromising the health and welfare of Canadians. That is what the government should have done.
First, it should have kept the cost at the January 1994 level and even increased the taxes on tobacco. Second, it should have put an export tax on tobacco in order to eliminate smuggling. Third, it needed to enforce the law.
Nobody talks about the law-abiding aboriginal people on reserves who live in the midst of thugs who engage in smuggling. I do not care whether they are aboriginal or non-aboriginal. These people are breaking the law. If they are breaking the law, the law has to be enforced and they should be dealt with accordingly. One law, one land, one people. However, that is not happening.
The government has put its tail between its legs and has not enforced the law. The law needs to be enforced not only for the sake of principle but also because nobody speaks for the law-abiding aboriginal people on the reserves who live in a culture of fear in the midst of these thugs. It does not suit them very much to have people who traffic in automatic weapons in their midst.
Fourth is education. Unless you have been living in a cave, Madam Speaker, it is impossible not to recognize the harmful, damaging, deleterious effects of tobacco consumption. We have to invest in children. As a physician I know that most people pick up tobacco when they are 11 or 12 years of age, not when they are 20. When they are 11 or 12 they do not know the difference. You can tell them as much as you want that tobacco will cause lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and a number of other problems later on and they simply will not listen because they have a sense of immortality.
If we are going to have an effective education policy we have to address children in terms that are meaningful to them. We have to address their sense of narcissism, which is normal for that age, and their sense of self. Tell them that their skin will look ugly, that their breath will smell, that their hair will smell. These are things they can understand. Tell them that they will age prematurely. These are the things they should be telling children, not that their lungs will look black when they are 55 years of age. That would be a far more effective way to address the educational situation with children.
The primary reason women and young girls start smoking is to be thin, to be skinny. This gets into a whole different issue which we can address at another time. The secondary reason is to be cool, which is a very difficult issue to address. If we attack their sense of narcissism, we will be much more effective in our educational policies than we would be if we talked about the long term effects of smoking to one's health.
Fifth, the government needs to stop subsidizing tobacco producers. Sixth, stop promotion and seventh, introduce crop substitution policies for the farmers. Contrary to the claims of the member for Haldimand-Norfolk, these policies do work.
I would like to address again the aggressive lobby which is being put on by the Bloc Quebecois on the sponsorship issue. Would these cultural and athletic events really disappear from the Canadian scene? Where would they go? To England? To France? To the United States? Of course not. All of those countries either have or are going to ban tobacco sponsorship of cultural and athletic events. They are not going anywhere. This is just another move by the tobacco companies to try to prevent having any restrictions placed on them and they will go to any length to do that.
This week during this debate the Bloc Quebecois sponsored an event in the Hall of Honour of the House of Commons, which was a front for the tobacco companies, where free drinks and food were served. It was a cheap, shameless effort to try to seduce members of the House to vote against Bill C-71. I cannot think of one reason why the people of Quebec should be proud of the members they elected to the House who would compromise the health and welfare of their children. The province of Quebec has the highest number of kids who smoke. They are compromising those children under the guise of tobacco sponsorship.
The tobacco companies claim that it is an issue of free speech. They hide their true agenda under spurious arguments.
In the United States they increased the content of carcinogens and addictive materials in tobacco.
If they say that advertising has no effect on children, why are they currently engaged in such a fight? Why do they invest millions of dollars into sponsorships? Out of the goodness of their hearts? I do not think so. Why are they currently engaged in the most aggressive advertising campaign in China that the world has ever seen? They are doing it because they recognize there are millions of potential smokers they can capitalize on. China is only beginning to realize the cost.
The tobacco companies have one agenda, to ensure that the greatest number of people in this or any other country smoke. They do not give a damn whether there will be any adverse effects. They are purveyors of a carcinogenic, toxic material which, if brought to this country today, would never be legalized.
A libertarian would say that people have the right to do what they want. People should have the right to consume whatever they want, whenever they want. However, libertarian views do not apply to 11 year olds. That is why we are trying to put forth good, tough legislation that will address the tobacco epidemic we have in Canada today.
I urge the government to do the following. First, be courageous and restore the tobacco taxes to the January 1995 level. Second, put an export tax on tobacco. That will cut the legs out from underneath the smugglers. Third, enforce the law so that those people who are smuggling are brought to justice. Fourth, introduce appropriate and effective educational policies within our schools, not only for tobacco but also for alcohol, pot, cocaine, heroin, et cetera. The dangers of all those substances need to be told through our education system.
This is an opportunity for the government to take a leadership role on this important issue. It can do something constructive for the health and welfare of all Canadians and, most important, for the health and welfare of our children.